Supplies List

Gourd
Awl OR needle tool OR drill with small bit.
Small saw blades for exacto knife OR a mini jigsaw.
Felt or leather for backing your pin.
Scissors.
Sandpaper (medium grade will do just fine).
Grapefruit spoon or rotary cutter with wire cleaning brush attachment.
Craft wood burner or professional pyrography tools (if these are not available than a black permanent magic marker will do just fine.).
Pencil.
Leather dyes OR watered down acrylic paint.
Q-tips AND/OR paintbrush.
Wood gouging tool OR linoleum carving tool OR rotary tool with carving bit.
Acrylic sealer OR polyeurathane OR varnish.
Fabri-Tac glue.
527 glue OR super glue gel.
Nail clippers or wire cutters.
Pipe cleaners.
Clothes pins OR other type of small clips.
Pliers.
Toothpick.
Small pin back.
Small glass beads and seed beads.

Page 1 of 3

This is a gourd.  This is what the doll is made out of.  First start by drilling a small hole in the gourd with a small drill or punch a hole in it will an awl or needle tool.  This will be your starter hole.

These are cutting tools.  On the left is a small hand saw.  On the right is a mini jigsaw.  This is what is recommended for cutting your gourd.

Starting at your pilot hole that you made earlier, put your cutting tool in the gourd and cut out some shapes.  I usually cut out many strips and then cut shapes from the strips.  It just goes faster this way.  You will need one head piece and one body piece.

Here are two pieces I have cut out to use as my doll.  The piece on the left is the body and the piece on the right is the head.  You could also switch the head for the body (for those of you in the wild art dolls forum...tee-he).

Now take your pieces you cut out of the gourd and place them rough side down on a piece of scrap leather, suede, felt, or any kind of heavy fabric.  Blue jeans would even work.  Now trace the pieces on the fabric with piece of chalk or whatever will show up on your fabric.

Now cut out the pieces of fabric.  We will use these pieces later in the lesson.

Scrape off any "gourd guts" that have stuck to your gourd.  I use either a grapefruit spoon (because it has a serrated edge.) or a rotary tool with a wire wheel attachment.

This will be the back of your doll.

Sand the backs and sides of your gourd pieces.  The backs don't have to be really smooth because they will be covered but sand them to get off the rest of the residual crud left behind after the scraping process.

The sides do have to be sanded smooth don't skimp on this step.

Use a pencil to draw a design on the body for clothes.  Now draw a face design on the head.  If you make a mistake use the eraser or a q-tip dipped in water.

Get quirky, remember there are no rules to this.  This will be an expression of you!!

These are a couple of wood burning tools.  It doesn't matter which one you use.

The yellow tool is a traditional craft hot tool.  The other two are professional pyrography tools that plug into a heat regulator.  There are many companies who make them and they all have different features, pros, and cons.

Now the fun begins!  Use your pyrography tool or hot tool to trace the pencil lines that you drew earlier.  Be very careful not to touch your skin or your furniture with these tools.  Some brands will get to 2000 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you don't have a wood burning tool than you can use a permanent black magic marker to trace your pencil lines.

These are bottles of leather dyes.  They are a favorite of mine for coloring gourds.  They have a very earthy feeling to them and all the colors go together for some weird reason.

Dip your q-tips (or paintbrush) in the dye and paint your gourds.  The grooves created from wood burning help to keep your dyes in the design lines and you don't have to worry about colors bleeding into areas you don't want (unless you DO want them to wander).  

When I do this part I like to blend the colors with a Q-tip to create a watercolor look.